Feeling a load had been lifted from his shoulders Tom Barton wandered into the hotel shopping arcade where he paused at the hotel’s travel agent, amongst the offers posted in its window was a three day trip to Phuket. It sounded like a good idea. Without further thought he went in and the girl informed him the trip included three nights in a hotel near to Patong Beach.
‘Is that in the centre?’
‘You mean Phuket?’
‘I don’t know. I’d like something near the centre, the beach area, close to the shops and restaurants,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Look, La Flora is fine, it overlooks Pa Tong Beach, that’s the most popular of Phuket’s beaches,’ she said showing him a brochure with photos.
Barton wanted to discover where the tourists were going, the routine of the Oriental was becoming a little dreary and he was in need of a change of atmosphere.
‘It looks good. When can I go? Today?’
She checked for flights and reservations on her computer, at the same time informing him February was the best season, the weather was good and the skies clear.
‘No problem,’ she announced after a couple of minutes. ‘There’s a flight with Thai Airways at 6.40 this evening if that suits you, what would you like, business?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘How long does it take to go to the airport?’
‘You should leave here at 4.30 the traffic is a little less heavy at that time.’
‘Okay,’ he said producing his still shiny Black Amex card.
After a little more than an hour’s flight the Airbus landed at Phuket International Airport, which lay at the northern point of the island, about twenty five kilometres from Pa Tong. The airport was small and carrying hand luggage Barton quickly made his way out of baggage claim into the arrivals area where he spotted a driver holding a hotel sign with his name written in black marker pen, waiting to pick him up.
Outside of the terminal building it seemed hotter than Bangkok. Night hand fallen and from what little he saw of the surroundings they was rural and with little traffic. After exiting the airport the driver took a motorway in direction of Phuket town. After about five kilometres they turned off to the right where the road rose steeply passing over a series of low hills before finally descending towards Pa Tong Beach. The bright lights and heavy traffic announced their arrival in the tourist resort and some minutes later the car pulled into the La Flora hotel on the bustling Taweewong Road.
The hotel was new, only recently opened. Barton’s large comfortable room came with a spacious terrace that overlooked the pool and the beach. Checking at his watch he saw it was just after nine; he had eaten on the plane and decided he would postpone any exploration until the next day.
Taking a cold Singha beer from the minibar he stepped out onto the terrace and dropped into one of the chaise longue savouring his new surroundings. It was a change from the background noise and rush of Bangkok. As he sipped his beer he listened to the waves and felt the warm sea breeze, a sensation of release flowed through his body, life suddenly seemed better, though there was a brief pang of tristesse as Emma floated back into his thoughts.
The next morning Barton was up early and after three or four lengths of the pool he headed for the hotel restaurant, choosing an English breakfast and coffee followed by fresh papaya with a slice of lime. He then set off to explore Patong, which the brochure he had picked up described as Phuket’s most popular and prettiest beach, offering water sports in translucide waters with hotels, restaurants, shopping centers and a vibrant nightlife filled with endless bars and pubs.
First, like for any tourist, was an inspection of the beach; a tropical paradise set in a crescent shaped bay; surrounded by low hills covered with thick dark green vegetation set against a sharp blue sky. Trees with thick tropical foliage lined the beach offering early risers, busy staking out their claims, protection from an already hot sun. Couples strolled in the gentle ripples of the calm transparent sea as beach attendants unhurriedly went about their work, setting out lines of loungers and parasols on the fine white sand, others attended to the beached jet skis and sailboats for rent. Barton was pleased with what he saw; it was more real than a postcard image and exactly what was needed for a carefree pause in the sun.
Next on his morning’s programme was a look at the town starting with Taweewong Road, which ran north to south parallel to the beach. It was a tourist paradise, a profusion of signs and neon lights, a kaleidoscope of fashion boutiques, gift shops, jewellers, bars, night clubs, restaurants, hotels, car rental offices, Internet cafés and tour agencies. Patong was light years away from Kovalam Beach in southern India, where he had made a disastrous start to the year and which had been Barton’s first encounter with a tropical beach resort. The tourists, on the other hand, were for the most part interchangeable. Pa Tong was neat and clean, as was almost all that Barton had seen of Thailand, there was not the slightest comparison with Delhi or Bombay, dystopian cities compared to modern Bangkok, the only point of resemblance was the endless tangle of traffic.
It was early; there was still a freshness in the air, everything seemed bright and the people smiling. Early bird tourists looked happy, pleased with life, pleased to be where they were. There was no searching for explanations, the kind of puzzlement he had seen on the faces of tourists in Kovalam, the effort of trying to reconcile local poverty and misery with costly holidays, beaches and sunshine. At the same time it was hard to realize that only three years before Pa Tong had been almost destroyed by the terrible tsunami.
La Flora was situated at the halfway point on Taweewong Road, better known as Beach Road, between Swadirak Road and Bangla Street. He crossed through the slow moving traffic and turned south to Bangla Street. There he discovered an extraordinary profusion of bars and nightclubs, visibly recovering from a long, long, night, doubtlessly like every night. Young women, who were evidently bar girls, made their way to and fro, they wore short shorts or brief skirts and tank tops, many of them carried bowls that almost certainly contained their breakfast. Cars, pickups, scooters and motorbikes crawled past.
It was understandable that the daily routine in Pa Tong commenced with the beach, where revellers sunned themselves and recovered from their hard night, then as the day wore on they slowly began to think about preparing for the coming evening.
From the brochures he had glanced through on the Thai Airways flight, there were other distractions: visits to butterfly gardens, crocodile farms and elephant rides; not really his thing. There were also boat trips. That did not seem like a bad idea, perhaps he would try that tomorrow. In the meantime he decided when in Rome…and with an indolent about turn made his way back to the hotel to prepare for the beach.
First he picked up a copy of the Bangkok Post Sunday edition and The International Herald Tribune, the latter a couple of days old. Then, nonchalantly, he made his way down onto the beach where he selected a lounger with a good view. A few vendors lazily made their way along the sand displaying their wares, cold drinks, fruit, T-shirts and souvenirs. He positioned himself under the parasol and assiduously applied a layer of sun protection, even though he already sported a good tan he was taking no chances given his now already two months experience of the tropical sun.
Looking around he observed holidaymakers doing the same thing. He wondered which category he fell into. He was not a holidaymaker, and no longer a businessman. Perhaps he could be described as a well-to-do traveller he thought pleased with the label. The past weeks had been so uprooting and so full of events he had had really very little time to analyse his own situation or think about his future.
Emma Parkly had for a moment filled him with what now turned out to be a false promise. It was difficult to accept he had been — how could he describe it — left in the lurch — dropped. Well that was what it was. She had returned home and made a choice and that choice wasn’t him. He was back to square one. Not that such an adventure had been part of his original programme, if there had been one.
The International Herald Tribune reported on events in Pakistan and George Bush’s African tour. The economic crisis appeared to have faded from the news. West Mercian and the Northern Rock had been forgotten by the press, the former was being bought by a large Spanish bank and the latter nationalized. Wall Street and the Footsie had bounced back in what he judged to be a moment of uneasy calm in the market, between successive bouts of nervousness. Barton knew that the fundamentals had not changed and made a mental note to tell his Swiss account manager to buy gold. The nervosity of financial markets made little difference to him, he had burnt his bridges and the only way was forward.
As the temperature rose and the noise of the traffic from the nearby streets wafted through the air he began to feel stiff on the lounger and started to think about getting something to eat and drink in a cool air-conditioned corner. The food peddlers’ wares looked good: fried chicken and freshly cut pineapple, but considering his recent experience in Kovalam he dismissed any idea of ceding to the temptation.
He slipped on his T-shirt and tucking the newspapers under his arm made his way to Taweewong Road, resolved to try one of the many bars rather than go for hotel fare. He had spotted a steakhouse earlier and the idea made his mouth water. After a trip around the block he found La Boucherie, situated in the Royal Phawadee Village. There were no other diners, perhaps it was a little early, but the menu looked appetising. A steak and a baked potato would make a nice change, he was hungry, he had almost forgotten what a good steak was; especially a French one — well at least that was how the menu described it.
He was greeted by a smiling girl who seated him by a window overlooking a small garden area and handed him a menu. He ordered a beer and selected a steak, he felt better, the air was cool, not too cool as was often the case in Thailand where restaurant and hotel staff seemed to like pumping up the aircon. Then inspecting the surroundings he noted the restaurant was part of a hotel, it was not too full and he imagined that at least some of the other diners were hotel guests.
Soon his concentration was focused on the delicious charcoal grilled steak placed before him; he ordered another beer, too busy to see a couple of tourists take a table near to his own. It was some minutes before his attention turned away from the steak and looking up he was pleased to note he had company. A couple of women, who they way they talked he figured were French, one was about thirty and the other in her mid to late fifties, probably the mother. They were what he would have described as stylish, not over tanned, nicely dressed in a casual holiday manner. The waitress handed them the menu and a long discussion ensued. There was obviously some difficulty in understanding and the friendly waitress glanced in his direction for help.
His many visits to Spain had given him a little Spanish, but his French was much more limited. Perhaps it was the waitress’s English that was the problem.
‘Vous êtes françaises?’ he tried.
‘Oui,’ they replied together.
‘You have a problem with the menu?’
‘Yes, we want our steak saignant, the English word has slipped my mind?’ said the younger woman.
He was in luck; it was a word he knew.
‘Ah, rare.’
‘Oui, that’s the word we were looking for,’ said the daughter laughing in amused embarrassment as her English was almost accentless, which was not the case for her mother’s.
The girl reminded him of Emma, perhaps a little more confident, sure of herself; not surprising given the circumstances under which he had met Emma.
She told him they were making a beach pause on a tour of Thailand and Cambodia. They had visited Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai and in three days they planned to explore Bangkok before flying to Phnom Penh from where they intended to visit Angkor Wat. The names did not mean very much to Barton, perhaps he had seen them in travel brochures, Thai place names were still confusing and in any case he had no idea where they were geographically. The two French women seemed keen on temples and history; Barton’s own oriental cultural knowledge of Asia was limited to the little he had seen during his tumultuous weeks in India.
‘Where are you staying?’ he asked them moving on to more familiar ground.
‘At La Flora,’ the younger woman said.
‘That’s a coincidence, so am I. My name is Tom Barton.’
‘I’m Sophie, this is my mother.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Are you staying here in Phuket — I mean are you visiting the rest of the country?’ asked Sophie.
‘Not exactly, I’m staying in Bangkok — business.’
‘Oh, that must be interesting,’ she said brightly, looking at him as though he was a specialist on the country.
‘Yes,’ said Barton not very convincingly. ‘How do you like it here?’
‘We’ve just arrived here, we haven’t really seen very much, it seems a little touristique,’ said the mother in a more hesitant English and with a pronounced French accent.
‘We chose Phuket and Pa Tong in particular because my other daughter was here when the tsunami struck. She’s a doctor and helped the injured.’
‘It was very bad here?’
‘Yes, it was one of the places most affected by the waves, five metres high,’ replied the mother. ‘Thank God my daughter had arrived late the evening before the tsunami and was in her room when the wave struck. Her hotel was on the hill at the north end of the beach.
‘We’re flying to Bangkok Thursday,’ said Sophie more cheerfully, ‘and we’ll be staying for three days to visit the sights before leaving for Cambodia.’
Their lunch was served and Barton returned to his steak thinking he should become a little more knowledgeable about Thailand. Up to that point he had been living in a cocoon and had paid little attention to anything else but his own thoughts.
He called for the bill and bid his neighbours goodbye then returned to the hotel where he spent the next two or three hours sleeping off his lunch.
Spain